I'm lending Justified to Dave so I've been rewatching a few episodes while I have them out.
It's like the show takes place in a fantasy land. The women are either very attractive or very unattractive. The men are either slick and cool or total backwoods hillbilly crooks. Either way, everyone is quite talkative.
I guess it's like the characters of The Dukes of Hazzard, fleshed out into three dimensions, and then thrown into a slightly more grimey and serious crime plot. It still retains a zainy atmosphere somehow though. And it is hilarious. Maybe more like Disney's Apple Dumpling Gang than the Dukes of Hazzard. Or how I remember the Apple Dumpling Gang from when I watched it as a child. 9.5/10.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Matilda - the broadway musical soundtrack
I read an article about how the Matilda broadway musical was getting a lot of critical acclaim in London, so I've been listening to this soundtrack. It is a very mixed bag. In Les Miserables, there's that kid song "Castle on a Cloud" and a few of the Matilda songs are like that. A kid sings about her troubles. These songs are, eh, okay. Les Mis also has that song "Master of the House" which annoys me. It's all off-beat honking horns and comical lyrics. Two of the songs are like that, and I skip them. (Them being "Loud" and "Telly.") But there are a few songs that I really, really enjoy. "School song" "Bruce" and "Revolting Children" feature a whole bunch of kids singing the melody. It sounds bad, the way I've described it, but it's done so well. It's almost like hearing a boys' choir singing a capella. "Bruce" and "Revolting Children" also manage to maintain a very quick pace, so it's like a choir but with instrumental accompaniment and songs that tell a story. Good stuff.
I recently found out that the Trunchbull might be played by a male actor. This is what comes from only listening to a soundtrack and not actually seeing the play. But in retrospect, the character does sound mannish, though he does a pretty good job. His singing does sound a bit like the guy who plays Dolores Umbridge in the second Harry Potter Musical. The Trunchbull songs are okay. More comical and less melodic, but still decent.
I recently found out that the Trunchbull might be played by a male actor. This is what comes from only listening to a soundtrack and not actually seeing the play. But in retrospect, the character does sound mannish, though he does a pretty good job. His singing does sound a bit like the guy who plays Dolores Umbridge in the second Harry Potter Musical. The Trunchbull songs are okay. More comical and less melodic, but still decent.
film: Touchback
I thought this movie was going to be something like "Injured former high school football star gets depressed with his unglamorous adulthood, finds fulfillment in assistant coaching high school football kids." Like the story of Jason Street in Friday Night Lights. But instead the quarterback goes back in time to high school! It's like Peggy Sue Got Married!!
Ah, reliving high school from an adult's perspective: there's nothing better. If only I could go back knowing what I know today...
Sadly, there is no Nicholas Cage in this one. But the main guy does okay and the girl is much cuter than Kathleen Turner. The starring actor looks no where near high school age, he looks like a 30 year old Rob Lowe. The other football players all look pretty old as well. (I mean for high schoolers.) Kurt Russell also looks a bit weird when he's supposed to be elderly.
The music is a little amateur-sounding, like a TV movie, but the dialogue is well done. Actually a lot of this is like a tv movie, I bet it's rated G or PG. No, no Varsity Blues strippers. Though it's a nice change to not need to empathize with Kathleen Turner having sex with every hipster smoker she sees.
Anyway, this movie is 20 times more fun than I was expecting. 9/10.
One last thing. 16 years ago, in high school, I was pushed by a kid playing football, fell on my hand, and I broke my pinky finger. If I time-warped back to that day I would definitely not break my finger again. Even if somehow the broken finger hooked me up with the girl I wanted to date (which it did not), my first instinct would be to try to find a way to get the girl without breaking any fingers. Surely voluntarily injuring myself is not required. (I'd figure something out, if I had the inside info. I can be sneaky.) The Star Trek episode "Tapestry" is much better in justifying why Picard voluntarily repeats history. With this movie, it seemed like the main character repeats history just because he's a little bit stupid.
Ah, reliving high school from an adult's perspective: there's nothing better. If only I could go back knowing what I know today...
Sadly, there is no Nicholas Cage in this one. But the main guy does okay and the girl is much cuter than Kathleen Turner. The starring actor looks no where near high school age, he looks like a 30 year old Rob Lowe. The other football players all look pretty old as well. (I mean for high schoolers.) Kurt Russell also looks a bit weird when he's supposed to be elderly.
The music is a little amateur-sounding, like a TV movie, but the dialogue is well done. Actually a lot of this is like a tv movie, I bet it's rated G or PG. No, no Varsity Blues strippers. Though it's a nice change to not need to empathize with Kathleen Turner having sex with every hipster smoker she sees.
Anyway, this movie is 20 times more fun than I was expecting. 9/10.
One last thing. 16 years ago, in high school, I was pushed by a kid playing football, fell on my hand, and I broke my pinky finger. If I time-warped back to that day I would definitely not break my finger again. Even if somehow the broken finger hooked me up with the girl I wanted to date (which it did not), my first instinct would be to try to find a way to get the girl without breaking any fingers. Surely voluntarily injuring myself is not required. (I'd figure something out, if I had the inside info. I can be sneaky.) The Star Trek episode "Tapestry" is much better in justifying why Picard voluntarily repeats history. With this movie, it seemed like the main character repeats history just because he's a little bit stupid.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Tv: King of the Nerds
I've watched 5 episodes of King of the Nerds now. Over all: thumbs down.
First off, the nerdy kids are all too different. Some are smart about a science, some know way too much about comics, and some just play video games. There's also one guy who designs roleplaying games, which I didn't even know was something you could consider a skillset. (What, no grammar nerds? No history re-enactment nerds? No strategy gamers?)
How can you throw all these people into a contest and give them all equal-ish chances to succeed? You can't really, so each contest is shamelessly geared towards one or two people on each team. For the team contests, that kinda works, and then for the individual faceoffs they make it totally, totally random. There was one about remotely driving golf carts, and one about answering trivia but then throwing a huge dice down a hill. They're either random or contrived by the writers to cater to a particular player. But I guess it has to seem that way. One of the comic book expert girls was sent to a comic book trivia round, but the questions were too obscure even for her. (They were quite obscure.) Meanwhile her competetor had only read wikipedia articles online for a couple hours to prepare, but a couple of the questions came straight from her reading.
The strongest and the weakest player of a losing team are sent into a "nerd-off" where the loser is disqualified. (Weakest is determined by the worst performance, and then the team votes for who else to send. This results in the strongest player because everyone votes for whoever the think is the biggest threat.) But the nerdoff is generally random stuff, so the strongest players were quickly disqualified. By the fourth episode only the unskilled nerds were left. (There was one hacker guy too, but I think they all must have known that there would be no computers-related challenges because nobody cared at all. He had to try to sell himself as a problem solver.)
Among the contestants there was almost no drama or scheming. At one point one guy told a girl that he wouldn't vote her off, but then he did. Whoa! She felt betrayed and cried a couple times, then he agreed to let her slap him and that settled things. (Every girl on this show cries and takes the competitions personally at some point. I wonder if nerd girls are more emotional or insecure than other girls.)
The first few episodes were the hardest to watch because the nerds have to justify their presence in the house, which means bragging about themselves. For some of them it is very sad. If the entire focus of your young adulthood has been video games or comic books, I can't help but think that you're wasting your life. You don't have video games, you have nothing. It's not something to be proud of. It evokes mixed emotions when they announce that the next contest is going to be about comics, and the comicbook experts celebrate.
I'm sure there's worse stuff on TV but I'm still done watching this.
First off, the nerdy kids are all too different. Some are smart about a science, some know way too much about comics, and some just play video games. There's also one guy who designs roleplaying games, which I didn't even know was something you could consider a skillset. (What, no grammar nerds? No history re-enactment nerds? No strategy gamers?)
How can you throw all these people into a contest and give them all equal-ish chances to succeed? You can't really, so each contest is shamelessly geared towards one or two people on each team. For the team contests, that kinda works, and then for the individual faceoffs they make it totally, totally random. There was one about remotely driving golf carts, and one about answering trivia but then throwing a huge dice down a hill. They're either random or contrived by the writers to cater to a particular player. But I guess it has to seem that way. One of the comic book expert girls was sent to a comic book trivia round, but the questions were too obscure even for her. (They were quite obscure.) Meanwhile her competetor had only read wikipedia articles online for a couple hours to prepare, but a couple of the questions came straight from her reading.
The strongest and the weakest player of a losing team are sent into a "nerd-off" where the loser is disqualified. (Weakest is determined by the worst performance, and then the team votes for who else to send. This results in the strongest player because everyone votes for whoever the think is the biggest threat.) But the nerdoff is generally random stuff, so the strongest players were quickly disqualified. By the fourth episode only the unskilled nerds were left. (There was one hacker guy too, but I think they all must have known that there would be no computers-related challenges because nobody cared at all. He had to try to sell himself as a problem solver.)
Among the contestants there was almost no drama or scheming. At one point one guy told a girl that he wouldn't vote her off, but then he did. Whoa! She felt betrayed and cried a couple times, then he agreed to let her slap him and that settled things. (Every girl on this show cries and takes the competitions personally at some point. I wonder if nerd girls are more emotional or insecure than other girls.)
The first few episodes were the hardest to watch because the nerds have to justify their presence in the house, which means bragging about themselves. For some of them it is very sad. If the entire focus of your young adulthood has been video games or comic books, I can't help but think that you're wasting your life. You don't have video games, you have nothing. It's not something to be proud of. It evokes mixed emotions when they announce that the next contest is going to be about comics, and the comicbook experts celebrate.
I'm sure there's worse stuff on TV but I'm still done watching this.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Film: Disney's Robin Hood
I think I gave this movie to my sister for my nieces to see. But now I'm not sure if that was a good idea. This movie is so much more bleak that I remember. It's really kinda bipolar. First it's merry and care-free, then a zanny archery contest and battle, and then it gets depressingly bleak. Everyone is starving and poor, and it's raining, and then poor Friar Tuck gets arrested!
Friar Tuck is a badger. I think. I wonder if he ever gets told "Quit badgering me!" I'd have said that all the time if I was a kid in that church. At least he's a sincere priest and not sneaky or evil. Those are pretty rare in film.
This movie isn't the masterpiece I remember. The atmosphere is great in some scenes but the wackyness of other scenes ruined it a bit. Still okay. How often do you see a chained mouse beg for a crumb of bread, and then shared his crumb with the rest of his chained up family? This should be PG-13.
Alan-A-Dale: Oh, incidentally, I'm Alan-A-Dale, a minstrel. That's an old time folk singer. My job is to tell it like it is, or was, or whatever.
Friar Tuck is a badger. I think. I wonder if he ever gets told "Quit badgering me!" I'd have said that all the time if I was a kid in that church. At least he's a sincere priest and not sneaky or evil. Those are pretty rare in film.
This movie isn't the masterpiece I remember. The atmosphere is great in some scenes but the wackyness of other scenes ruined it a bit. Still okay. How often do you see a chained mouse beg for a crumb of bread, and then shared his crumb with the rest of his chained up family? This should be PG-13.
Alan-A-Dale: Oh, incidentally, I'm Alan-A-Dale, a minstrel. That's an old time folk singer. My job is to tell it like it is, or was, or whatever.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Thoughts on Weird Al, parodies and copyrights
I've been thinking about Weird Al Yankovic. This came up at trivia a couple weeks ago and Peter and I argued about whether Weird Al could be infringing copyrights or whether his works are protected parodies. The argument got perhaps too passionate. Peter sometimes confidently makes assertions that I think are incorrect, and I do exactly the same thing. But here's a stream of thought from someone who is not a lawyer.
Weird Al always gets the original artist's permission before releasing a song, and he's never been sued, so it's not really clear what kind of legal standing he might have.
I guess there haven't been very many parody copyright lawsuits, especially with music. Usually parody issues are libel or defamation issues, and it's easy to see how parody shouldn't generally be considered libel or defamation. A fake parody news story about George Bush eating babies or something isn't really defamation because it's so outrageous.
In 1989, 2 Live Crew released a song "Pretty Woman" which copies a few seconds of the oldies song's chord progression, but for the most part just has a guy rapping intentionally off-key about women's fashion. The appeals court said that this parody wasn't fair use because of its commercial character, but then the Supreme court ruled that the commercial character of the song doesn't mean the parody isn't fair use. I just listened to the song for the first time now and it's probably like 97% dissimilar to the original.
(http://lawbrain.com/wiki/Parody)
Firstly, does Weird Al's work really constitute parody? I'm not convinced that it does. A parody is an imitation that makes a comment on the original. Stephen Colbert makes fun of right wing pundits through his imitation. The movie Hot Shots makes fun of Top Gun.
(http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Parody)
I'm not a Weird Al expert, but do his songs really comment on the original song? The Weird Al song "Eat It" is supposedly a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". I don't know many Weird Al songs, but I know a little Michael Jackson. "Beat It" is about persevering in the face of oppression or defeat. From the lyrics, "Eat It" is encouraging someone to eat his dinner. I don't see any more depth than that, honestly. Maybe some of Weird Al's other songs are more clear on their commentary.
From the supreme court: "For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works.... If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger."
And: "Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing."
(http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15758460119711775481&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr)
(the court's written opinion in the case of a Dr . Seuss parody book about the OJ Simpson trial, The Cat NOT in the Hat! The court noted that factors contributing to this being not fair use were that the parody work was both nontransformative and commercial, descriptions that probably apply to Weird Al's songs as well.)
It seems to me, though you may say I'm biased because I've never been a big Weird Al fan, that Weird Al "merely uses the music and lyrical rhythms of a popular song to get attention and avoid the drudgery of working up something fresh." This sounds like a very accurate description to me. And while we can say that Weird Al, in a conventional sense, creates parodies, according to legal definitions at least a few of his works are not parodies but are instead satire.
Secondly, doesn't Weird Al duplicate, in its entirety, the music of the original? He's not just sampling it or being influenced by it. I guess he pays royalties for the music. It's strange, a bunch of webpages say that he's obligated to pay royalties but isn't obligated to get the original artist's permission. How does that make sense? Is there a standard royalties rate, and if I pay you that amount then I have the right to do whatever I want with your music. Silly. Try publishing a Harry Potter fan fiction without permission, and then just sending JK Rowling some royalties. See where that gets you. This is the kind of nonsense you'll find online. (Uneducated opinions. Including this one I'm posting right now.)
Maybe someday Weird Al will get sued and this parody/fair use issue will be more clear. (And the "royalties without permission" rumors.) Unlikely though. He appears to have very good self control about not releasing songs that will provoke in a lawsuit.
Weird Al always gets the original artist's permission before releasing a song, and he's never been sued, so it's not really clear what kind of legal standing he might have.
I guess there haven't been very many parody copyright lawsuits, especially with music. Usually parody issues are libel or defamation issues, and it's easy to see how parody shouldn't generally be considered libel or defamation. A fake parody news story about George Bush eating babies or something isn't really defamation because it's so outrageous.
In 1989, 2 Live Crew released a song "Pretty Woman" which copies a few seconds of the oldies song's chord progression, but for the most part just has a guy rapping intentionally off-key about women's fashion. The appeals court said that this parody wasn't fair use because of its commercial character, but then the Supreme court ruled that the commercial character of the song doesn't mean the parody isn't fair use. I just listened to the song for the first time now and it's probably like 97% dissimilar to the original.
(http://lawbrain.com/wiki/Parody)
Firstly, does Weird Al's work really constitute parody? I'm not convinced that it does. A parody is an imitation that makes a comment on the original. Stephen Colbert makes fun of right wing pundits through his imitation. The movie Hot Shots makes fun of Top Gun.
(http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Parody)
I'm not a Weird Al expert, but do his songs really comment on the original song? The Weird Al song "Eat It" is supposedly a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". I don't know many Weird Al songs, but I know a little Michael Jackson. "Beat It" is about persevering in the face of oppression or defeat. From the lyrics, "Eat It" is encouraging someone to eat his dinner. I don't see any more depth than that, honestly. Maybe some of Weird Al's other songs are more clear on their commentary.
From the supreme court: "For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works.... If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger."
And: "Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing."
(http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15758460119711775481&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr)
(the court's written opinion in the case of a Dr . Seuss parody book about the OJ Simpson trial, The Cat NOT in the Hat! The court noted that factors contributing to this being not fair use were that the parody work was both nontransformative and commercial, descriptions that probably apply to Weird Al's songs as well.)
It seems to me, though you may say I'm biased because I've never been a big Weird Al fan, that Weird Al "merely uses the music and lyrical rhythms of a popular song to get attention and avoid the drudgery of working up something fresh." This sounds like a very accurate description to me. And while we can say that Weird Al, in a conventional sense, creates parodies, according to legal definitions at least a few of his works are not parodies but are instead satire.
Secondly, doesn't Weird Al duplicate, in its entirety, the music of the original? He's not just sampling it or being influenced by it. I guess he pays royalties for the music. It's strange, a bunch of webpages say that he's obligated to pay royalties but isn't obligated to get the original artist's permission. How does that make sense? Is there a standard royalties rate, and if I pay you that amount then I have the right to do whatever I want with your music. Silly. Try publishing a Harry Potter fan fiction without permission, and then just sending JK Rowling some royalties. See where that gets you. This is the kind of nonsense you'll find online. (Uneducated opinions. Including this one I'm posting right now.)
Maybe someday Weird Al will get sued and this parody/fair use issue will be more clear. (And the "royalties without permission" rumors.) Unlikely though. He appears to have very good self control about not releasing songs that will provoke in a lawsuit.
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